Away With It

As well as pointing out the links between George Osborne and Richard Caring, one of several politicised moneybags from the Blair years (not least including Michael Levy) to have gravitated effortlessly towards Cameron, Peter Oborne writes:

Meanwhile the political class reckons it’s got away with it. Each political leader has cunningly sacrificed a handful of backbenchers, such as the blameless and irreproachable Douglas Hogg. However, the real culprits survive and apparently prosper.

Consider this: neither Gordon Brown, David Cameron nor Nick Clegg has sacked one senior colleague as a result of this affair. Indeed Cameron has put one of his worst offenders, Alan Duncan, in charge of cleaning up the system. Parliament has signalled open defiance of ordinary decency by electing John Bercow, one of the more appalling expenses cheats, to the formerly magnificent post of Speaker.

Under Bercow’s squalid leadership, the House of Commons (with the secret support of government whips as well as the Tory opposition) has sabotaged the Parliamentary Standards Bill. Every single one of the key measures designed to impose honour, integrity and honesty on our scurrilous legislators was voted down last week in the Commons. Now this flawed but sadly necessary measure is coming under fresh assault in the Lords.

Our bent politicians are calculating that voters will have forgotten parliamentary corruption by the time of the election. I so hope they are wrong.